Mathilde 02 - The Poison Maiden (25 page)

Un bon homme
, Monsieur Foucher. I have a special Book of Hours, once beautiful, its vellum cover now tattered, aged with use, stained and frayed. At the back, like any good bedeswoman or chancery priest, I have a list of those souls I pray for. People who did what they could when there were so many reasons why they should pass by on the other side. Raoul is one of these. After he left, I fled to my own chamber and crouched in the corner, staring at the light pouring through the lancet window. I sat huddled, seething with fear, hate, revenge and a deep, cloying sense of despair. When would this all end? I stared at the bleak crucifix and prayed for an end to my heart bubbling like a cauldron, full to the brim with disorderly, dangerous humours. My gaze wandered to a triptych of St Anne, mother of the Virgin, bending over her precious child. I prayed to her even as I recognised the words of Augustine: how demons can cloak themselves in thick, moist bodies such as steam from a pot or foul gases from a marsh. Did such demons prowl now, wrapped and wafted in the perfumes of this palace, drifting along its corridors and galleries, sliding like a mist, searching for the gaps and crevices in the armour of my soul? I prayed to St Anne and breathed in deeply. Images of my mother floated through my mind. I’d always been closer to my father than to her. I believed I was more the expression of her love for him than the object of her love. Nevertheless, the ties of the womb are the strongest. I wept for how her gentleness must have suffered at the hands of the Noctales. God forgive me, I seethed with hate for Marigny, Alexander of Lisbon and La Maru.

A tap on the door roused me from my reverie. A pageboy, hair all tousled, pushed his cheeky face through.

‘Mademoiselle Mathilde, you must come, the queen waits for you.’

I rose to my feet, straightened my dress and hurried after him into the gallery. The queen was in her own private chamber. She was sitting on the edge of her hung bed, its gorgeous tapestries bundled back over the rods above her. She was dressed in a linen shift gathered high at the neck, her feet pushed into silver-gold slippers, her long hair hanging free down to her shoulders. She was humming to herself as she arranged the playing cards Marigny had brought her from France, sorting them into sections: hearts, trefoils, pikes and squares. She sat as if immersed in this, unaware of anything else as I closed the door behind me. By then I knew her. Isabella was at her most dangerous when she looked the most innocent!

‘What is wrong, Mathilde? You’ve been back some time, I understand? Yet you did not hurry to see your mistress.’ She gestured at a stool close to the bed. I sat down and told her everything that had happened. She kept playing with the cards and, after I had finished, continued to arrange them into sets of four.

‘Do you know, Mathilde,’ she gathered one set into her hand and clenched them tightly, ‘while you were gone, I went across to the abbey; the good brothers, I understand, are preparing for their head-shearing. Anyway, I examined the misericords, the carvings beneath the stalls where the monks sit. Grotesque scenes! A witch riding a cat, a man fighting a dog, a mock bishop, Samson tearing a lion’s jaws, and next to that, a jackal devouring a disinterred corpse. I wondered, Mathilde, do such paintings reflect the humours of our tangled souls? Let us forget about our problems here.’ She stared at me with those icy blue eyes, her lower lip clenched between her teeth. ‘Your poor mother, Mathilde, what shall we do about her?’ She threw the cards on the bed and lifted a finger. ‘I shall certainly write to my father. What I don’t want is to be like Herod in that play we are preparing for Easter. You remember?’

I nodded, though I scarcely did. Isabella had a love of such mummery and liked nothing better than to hire players and watch their comic antics. She was a keen reader of their texts and had learnt some of the lines, which she would mouth with the leading characters.

Isabella closed her eyes. ‘Remember Herod’s line? “Out, out, out! I stamp. I stare. I look about! I rant! I rage! Now I am mad. The brat of Bethlehem? He shall be dead.”’

‘Mistress?’ I queried.

‘Mathilde,’ Isabella opened her eyes, ‘we must not rant and shout but sit and watch. This is the waiting time. We must be subtle, as full as trickery as our opponents. So, let us think, then let us prepare . . .’

Two days later my mistress, clothed in shimmering cloth of gold, her chair of state strewn with blue silk tapestries boasting the gorgeous lilies of France, invited Enguerrand de Marigny and Alexander of Lisbon to share sweet wines from Spain and honey-coated cakes. The ostensible reason was to thank the Portuguese for accepting Gaveston’s offer of battle as well as commiserate with him for injuries received. Isabella, the perfect minx, her hair and beautiful face framed by a snow-white wimple, a gold circlet round her head, had issued the invitation and received the Lord Satan and his imp, as she called them, in her inner chamber. Marigny, of course, dared not refuse. Moreover, he was full of curiosity as well as diplomatic questions about whether Isabella was enceinte. He came clad in the dark, rich robes of a lawyer, except for a froth of white around his throat and wrists; rings glittered on his fingers; around his neck was a silver chain carrying a large gold fleurde-lis – a sign that he enjoyed his royal master’s personal favour. Alexander was clothed in the usual black cotehardie and leggings, a white cambric shirt beneath. He looked unaffected by his fall except for mild purple bruising on the right side of his face, a sprain to his wrist and a slight limp. Both were ingratiating to my mistress. I was ignored. The Lord Fox, his sharp, pointed features frozen in a smile, red hair combed and coiffed, darting green eyes full of malice, did glance sharply at me; his thin lips twisted in a smile before he returned all adoringly to my mistress with a litany of false flatteries. Alexander of Lisbon, dark face smouldering, tried to ape such subtle deceit but found it more difficult.

I served goblets of sweet wines and silver dishes of sweetmeats and frumentaries. My mistress was a born actor, playing the part, the gracious queen, the gentle hostess. I recalled those accounts I had drawn up for the plays to be staged at Easter: ‘Pontius Pilate paid five shillings. Demons one shilling and fourpence. The man who imitated a cock crowing, fourpence. The drapers who acted the end of the world, three shillings. The person who kept the fire at hell’s mouth, fourpence.’ I reflected on these as I watched my mistress closely. She was acting. She saw everything as a play: the various parts were assigned, the roles to be played, and she had to deliver her lines. She was a mistress of the moment, the dramatic change, the subtle tone. She allowed Marigny to treat her as if she was some infant babbling away, then abruptly put her goblet down and leaned back in her chair.

‘My Lord Marigny, tell my father I may not be enceinte. I deeply regret, but perhaps I will not bear a child, at least this year.’

Marigny’s eyes fluttered. He slurped noisily at the goblet and glanced sharply at me as if wondering whether this had been a trap all along.

‘I wish now,’ Isabella’s voice became hard, ‘to move to another matter. Alexander of Lisbon, are you enjoying that wine?’

‘Yes, your grace.’

‘Do you know it is poisoned?’

The Portuguese almost dropped the goblet but grasped it in time. Marigny leaned forward, hand extended; Isabella fluttered her fingers and he quickly withdrew.

‘Your grace,’ the Portuguese gabbled, ‘you are joking?’

‘Think, sir,’ Isabella continued, ‘Mathilde here poured the wine. She distilled a concoction in yours.’ She sipped from her own goblet. ‘Do you feel the effects, an irritation in your stomach?’

Alexander of Lisbon’s dark face creased in concern. He licked his lips and put the goblet down.

‘Your grace would not poison me?’

‘Why not?’ Isabella retorted.

Marigny sat, eyes darting from Isabella to me then back again.

‘Your grace, what is this? I am your father’s envoy.’

‘So you are, Monsieur Marigny. You wage war against my husband and his favourite, as do I, you know that.’ Isabella smoothed over the lie. ‘You bring this man here to do your bidding. Is that not so, Alexander of Lisbon?’

The Portuguese nodded. He was now clutching his stomach, staring agitatedly at my mistress.

‘I think we should talk about Mathilde, Monsieur Marigny,’ Isabella continued. ‘You are her enemy. She is yours. We both know the reason why. Last month, Alexander of Lisbon, your men, under a Burgundian named La Maru, were quartered in her mother’s farm: Catherine de Clairebon of Bretigny, do you remember that? Swiftly now, and I might tell you how to heal yourself.’

Alexander of Lisbon nodded quickly.

‘That must stop,’ Isabella said quietly. ‘Do you understand me, Monsieur Marigny? That shall stop! You, sir, if you have dealings with Mathilde de Clairebon, deal solely with her, like two warriors in a list, but her mother, an ageing widow – surely, sir, the rules of combat exclude her?’

Marigny half smiled. ‘And my companion,’ he asked, ‘Alexander of Lisbon? Is he to fall ill like Master Guido, to vomit and retch? How would your husband explain that? What does that say of you, mistress?’

‘Do I have your word,’ Isabella insisted, ‘that Catherine de Clairebon of Bretigny will not be abused or ill treated?’

‘I cannot say . . . I . . . I do not know . . .’ Marigny paused. Alexander, white-faced, was clutching his stomach in apparent discomfort.

‘Yes you do,’ Isabella insisted, ‘as will my father in my next letter to him. I will tell him that is my wish. Catherine de Clairebon is to be treated most tenderly and fall within his love as she must within yours, Monsieur de Marigny! Do I have your word? If I do not, your friend and companion will certainly fall ill. I shall still write to my father explaining how you frustrated my wishes. Do I have your word?’

Marigny shrugged. ‘Your grace, provided your father agrees, you have my word.’

‘And you, Monsieur Alexander?’ Isabella turned, all smiles, and the Portuguese, hand on his stomach, stared fearfully at her. ‘Do I have yours?’

‘Yes, your grace,’ he gasped.

‘And this La Maru – he has now come from France? He is with you here in England?’

‘Yes, your grace.’

‘He is to be dismissed from your company immediately, without stipend or payment. Do you agree?’

Alexander of Lisbon looked quickly at Marigny, who nodded imperceptibly.

‘Yes, your grace.’

‘Good.’ Isabella rose to her feet, walked across to a side table and poured a beaker full of water, then took it back and thrust it into the Portuguese’s hand. ‘Drink, Alexander.’ She patted him gently on the shoulder. ‘You have nothing more than a mustard paste in your stomach. No, no.’ She daintily held up a hand to fend off his protest. ‘The point I am trying to make is that this time what you drank was innocent; it will cause some discomfort, but it will pass. Next time, Alexander of Lisbon, if you try to hurt Catherine de Clairebon or any of her family and friends in France, the potion you shall drink will be deadly.’

Isabella sat back on the throne-like chair, hands folded across her stomach. She smiled sweetly at her two guests.

‘You see, Monsieur Marigny, I too have power and influence. If I cannot protect those I love, what princess am I? What queen am I? Reflect carefully on what I have said and done today. Moreover, what can you do: protest to my father in Paris? He’ll be angry, but in his secret chamber, he will reflect and laugh behind his hand at what happened. And you, Master Alexander – do you want to tell your company how you were tricked and deceived by a mere girl and her maid?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. You delivered a warning to Mathilde. I have delivered one back. I have drawn a line; cross that line and we will be enemies. Observe the truce, and so shall I. You see, Monsieur Marigny,’ Isabella held her hands up, clasping them together as if in prayer, ‘what my husband and Lord Gaveston do is one concern; what happens in my own household is another. You must observe the division, you must observe the line. Do I have your word?’

Marigny cocked his head to one side and stared impudently at my mistress as if assessing her for the first time.

‘Your grace,’ he leaned forward, ‘do you wish to have further words with us? My companion, as you can see, is distressed and we should retire.’

‘I have spoken what I wish, Monsieur Marigny. You and Alexander of Lisbon may withdraw.’

Marigny and the Portuguese rose to their feet. The Lord Satan bowed. He was about to turn away but, of course, he had to say it, end our meeting with some subtle flattery.

‘Your grace,’ he smiled, ‘now I can see you are truly your father’s daughter.’

‘And so I am, Monsieur Marigny,’ Isabella replied, ‘and you must remember that. I tell you this.’ Her voice thrilled slightly. ‘Monsieur Marigny, you should look to yourself and to your own. You tie yourself to my father’s belt, and if he rises, you rise with him, but have you ever thought what happens when he falls,
if
he falls?’

Marigny looked shocked, as if he had never contemplated such a possibility.

‘You should be careful, Monsieur Marigny. The world is changing, and so must you. I bid you adieu.’

Once they had gone, Isabella leaned forward, face in her hands, and giggled quietly to herself. She let her fingers fall away.

‘Well, Mathilde, did we do well?’

‘Very well, your grace, very well indeed.’

Isabella took a deep breath and sighed noisily.

‘Mathilde, what I said to Marigny is true. Everything is changing. This is a time of weeping and waiting. Yet I’ll confess this to you. One day my Lord Gaveston must go. He cannot remain dancing on the green for ever.’

‘You oppose him, mistress?’

‘No, Mathilde, I do not. I have studied Edward most closely; I must control him as any woman must a man. Edward and Gaveston,’ she locked two fingers together, ‘they are not two but one: one body, one soul, one heart. Some day, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, the Great Lords will seize Gaveston and kill him. Once he dies, Edward will retreat like a hermit into his cell. He will hide deep within his soul and plot vengeance. Anyone who had anything to do with Gaveston’s fall or destruction will rue the day. When that happens . . .’ Isabella half smiled, ‘I want to ensure that my name is not on that list of those who caused his fall.’